“You really are trying to get me in trouble, aren’t you?” she said, only half in jest.
“I need you to look into the 301st Army Airborne Division. More specifically, into something called Alpha Unit. They were in Iraq or Afghanistan. I need to know specifically what they’re about and what they did over there.”
“Alpha Unit. The 301st Airborne. I’ll get it as soon as I can. But Ty, I can’t let you hang up just yet. Mr. Foley said he’ll have my ass if you called in again and I didn’t put you on. And I only half think that he was joking.”
Hauck knew his boss was perfectly capable of doing something like that, canning someone, simply to make his point to someone else. “Don’t worry about Tom. I’ve got your back. Just get me that information as quick as you can. And Brooke …”
“Yes.”
“This stays between us? Not anyone else in the company.”
“That goes without saying, Ty.”
“Especially Foley.”
“So I guess you did, after all …?” He could hear the tiny smile in her voice.
“Did what?” he asked
“Get involved.”
“Let’s just say something’s got my attention out here. And you know how that always seems to go.”
“Yes.” Brooke sighed. “I do know.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Dani hung with Trey’s buddies Rudy and John Booth at the café in town, until they said that they had to head back to Carbondale. John played in a band and had a gig tonight in Glenwood Springs. They asked if she wanted to ride back with them.
“No. My stuff is in my uncle’s car,” she said. “He texted he’s on his way.”
She gave them both a hug. It had been a tearful ceremony. Both John and Rudy had asked to say something at it. They’d lost one of their own. Dani had her doubts, of course, about what had happened. But she didn’t share them. At least, not until she knew if they led anywhere. She and Ty had already crossed the line a bit with Allie and Trey’s father.
“We’ll see you back in town.” John Booth waved.
After the guys left, Dani stuck around the café. The waitress came up, a woman of about fifty, her dark brown hair in an old-fashioned bob. She was cheerful. Everyone seemed to know each other in here. Small town.
“I see your friends have left. Can I get you anything else?” she asked.
“How about a refill on the coffee, thanks …” Dani checked her watch. Ty had texted he was on his way. This wasn’t exactly Starbucks, she acknowledged to herself. Lattes and macchiato would be a foreign language here.
“Never seen the lot of you before. What brings you all to town?” the waitress asked as she came back with a pot and refilled Dani’s cup.
“We came for a funeral,” Dani said.
“Oh,” she said. “Chuck Watkins’s boy?”
Dani nodded.
“So sorry to hear about that. I knew him a bit, growing up, before he went off. Seems like he died the way he lived, though. He was certainly not one to hold back.”
“No, he wasn’t,” Dani agreed, smiling.
“I don’t think he ever came back much after he left. I know he and his father never quite saw things eye to eye. No farmer, that boy … We knew that the minute he got out of these parts he wasn’t coming back.” She took out a rag and wiped down the table. “Not that many people here would disagree with him.”
“Disagree about what?”
“You’re not family, are you?”
Dani shook her head. “Trey was a friend.”
“Well, he’s an honorable man, Chuck. His father. And nobody’s fool. Everybody here respects someone who makes a go of it with what they’re given. That farm’s been in the family for a long time.”
“The drought here has clearly cost him.”
“Like it’s cost a lot of people … But you have to move forward,” the waitress said. “Look around, things are changing here. We have opportunities now.”
“You talking the oil?”
“Honey, all the sugar beets and potatoes a man can plant in a lifetime won’t match a minute’s worth of what that land can really produce. I don’t know why God saw to put it all here. Four years ago, this place was just a dried-up patch of dying cropland. Now we have schools, parks. People staying, not moving away. Jobs.”
“I saw the park. And the football stadium. And I’ve seen this logo around a bit. RMM?”
“You’ll get used to it if you spend a day here.” The waitress laughed. “Resurgent Mining and Mineral. And bless them. You can ask anyone here, they’ll tell you.”
“Tell me what?”
“Like I said, every man’s entitled to live his life as he sees fit. But one thing you don’t want to mess with”—the waitress folded her rag in her apron—“is a town’s future.”
Dani noticed her boss behind the counter, who seemed to be giving her the eye. There was something almost eerie and swept under the surface about what was going on in this place.
“Never mind anyway …” The waitress saw her boss looking at her. “I’ve probably said enough. Why anyone who knows me ends up calling me Gabby. Let me know if you need anything else, honey, okay?” Then she looked back at the grill. “Junior, that stack of blueberries ready for table six yet?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Hauck turned onto Route 34 on his way back to pick up Dani.
It was clear Alpha was keeping what Robertson did for them under the radar. The guy had taken someone’s identity, an army friend from his old unit. He received his mail at an abandoned house—who knew who owned it? He worked amorphously in what they referred to as “the field.”
Yet he was down in Aspen last week, where whatever fell under the job description of “senior field coordinator” intersected tragically with Trey Watkins. Maybe with that hot-air balloon as well. He had served with his boss, McKay, in Alpha Unit, in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hauck had been up against this type of resistance before, many times. He knew when he was being stonewalled and told to butt out.
Those were precisely the times when he knew it was time to dig deeper.
Halfway back to Templeton, on the stretch of the road that followed the river, he noticed one of those gleaming, eighteen-wheeler oil tankers—identical to the ones he and Dani had seen yesterday—about a quarter mile behind him and coming up him fast.
He realized he was almost at the very same spot where yesterday they had seen them pull onto the main road from the river.
The shiny exterior of the long, cylindrical tanker glinted sharply in the sun.
RMM—that was the logo on them, he recalled.
It was a gold mine. What did McKay say, a hundred thousand barrels a day? Seven million cubic feet of natural gas. A hundred gold mines. Against it, a bunch of dried-out crops and farmers … How could they even compete? The fancy park, the state-of-the-art football facility. Templeton was bought and paid for, and the check read “RMM.” Everyone was grabbing their share of the Wattenberg field.
Everyone except Chuck Watkins maybe.
Hauck glanced again in the mirror and saw that the big oil rig he had seen a quarter mile behind had now pulled within a couple of hundred yards. He was nearing the turnoff where he had seen them come up from the river, by his best guess, a half a mile or so up ahead. That’s where this one would likely be turning into, he surmised. To whatever well was down there. He thought of going down there to check.
As he neared, he saw an identical rig pull up at the intersection. It pulled out, slowly at first, its turning radius swinging it wide into the oncoming lane until it righted itself a hundred yards or so in front of Hauck. Hauck slowed. Gradually, the tanker built up speed, ten to twenty to thirty miles per hour.
The rig in his rearview mirror had now made up most of the gap on him. It seemed likely it would turn onto the same road to the river where the one in front of him had just come out from.
The one that was just ahead of him now …
Hauck didn’t notice a
blinker on. And he didn’t seem to be slowing. Hauck sped past the turnoff.
Maybe fifty yards behind him now, the large oil rig did as well.
And it continued to pick up speed and narrow the gap until it was right on Hauck’s tail. The one in front of him was cruising along at around thirty. Hauck was suddenly sandwiched between the two giant rigs.
“Take it easy, pal,” Hauck said, glancing in the rearview mirror. “What’s the hurry?”
Hauck looked ahead to try to pass. The traffic was light and they were on a straightaway with a dotted line, but as he swung into the oncoming lane and hit the gas, the oil rig in front of him sped up as well. For a moment, Hauck found himself completely in no-man’s-land. He looked behind. The truck behind him kept up its pace as well. They are playing possum with me! He didn’t dare try it. He squeezed back in lane in between the trucks. For a second they just kept their speed.
Having fun? Hauck glared in his mirror behind, trying to make out the driver’s face.
The truck behind him honked. Hauck caught a glimpse of the driver. White. Baseball cap. Reflective sunglasses. He honked again.
The truck in front began to slow.
That was when it dawned on Hauck that these assholes weren’t playing a game with him at all.
So here’s the welcoming committee, he said to himself. Courtesy of Alpha and RMM.
That sure was quick.
The rig in back picked up its speed again. With mounting alarm, Hauck thought for a second that he was about to be dead-on rammed. He sped up, hugging the Colorado license plate of the rig in front. They were all cruising along at fifty. He glanced behind. He noted to himself that if the guy in front of him suddenly stopped …
Hauck’s blood started to tighten.
He was in one of those compact, four-cylinder SUVs. Not a lot under the hood. He saw a clear path up in front of him now and decided to gun it and make a run for it. He gave it everything he had.
He shot out into the oncoming lane. His speed was up to seventy now. Eighty. He pulled alongside the truck in front. Ninety. The sonovabitch picked up his speed as well. Keeping pace.
Asshole.
Hauck kept the pedal to the floor and got about halfway past when he saw a filmy object on the road far ahead and realized he couldn’t risk this. He immediately hit the brakes, letting the front truck shoot by him, and ducked back into his lane, barely squeezing in as the creep behind him was tight on his tail.
Seconds later, a UPS truck whooshed by. What Hauck would have met head-on if he’d continued to pass.
Now, it was crystal clear what was going on.
The road curved along the river now and he couldn’t pass. The cab behind him was virtually on top of him. He was trapped. They were toying with him. He hoped they were only toying. This was a game of cat and mouse, and clearly he was the one with the big ears and long whiskers. His heart began to beat with some urgency.
They could flatten him at any moment.
Doing sixty, Hauck glanced at the road’s shoulder on the right. The road was slightly elevated, with a drop-off of three to four feet between the shoulder and a dried-up field. Enough to send his car into a deadly roll if he went over. The sonovabitch in back had pulled up on his tail. Hauck had the sense the guy was about to ram his rear. He kept on looking behind him and then ahead, his pulse going as fast as the car. He had to do something. And do it now. His nerves picked up as he glanced at the side of the road. Behind him he heard the rumble of the truck’s engine hitting another gear.
His car was a rental, and he was on the hook for it, but hell, he decided, as he saw it coming right on top of him, a thousand-dollar deductible was a whole lot better than his life.
He jerked his wheel sharply to the right, forcing his SUV onto the pebbly shoulder, where he spun into a shaky, screeching turn, trying to hold it together. Spraying gravel, he tumbled over the three-foot embankment, his SUV nosediving into a ditch, then righting itself with a huge bounce that nearly flung him out of his seat. He came to an abrupt stop in a cloud of dust and flying pebbles.
Hauck’s heart flew into his throat. “Sonovabitches!” Dust was everywhere. He watched the other two rigs drive off down the road, the drivers probably laughing to themselves over the radio. They could have easily killed him if he had rolled. He couldn’t see if the trucks had kept going or stopped. If anyone was coming back for him. His breaths were heavy in his chest and his heart was pulsing, seeming about three times its normal size.
He had an urge to gun the car and turn around and head back to Greeley, and give McKay a sense of how he appreciated the escort.
But he had Dani to pick up. He put the SUV in gear and went to climb back on the road, when up ahead, from the direction of Templeton, he saw another vehicle racing toward him.
The real welcoming committee.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Flashing blue-and-red lights came into focus. A white-and-blue police SUV drove up at high speed.
The committee chairman, Hauck said sarcastically.
It slowed as it came in sight, slowly bumping over the elevated shoulder, and pulled up next to him, about five feet from Hauck’s car.
The driver stepped out, khaki uniform, bald on top, short red hair on the sides. The requisite shades. Above the gold shield on the door it said, TOWN OF TEMPLETON, COLORADO.
And beneath it, CHIEF OF POLICE.
“You all right, mister?” The cop stepped over to Hauck’s vehicle.
“Fine.” Hauck lowered the window. “Just a friendly driving lesson from those two rigs that probably just sped right past you going around eighty. Guess I flunked.”
“Yeah.” The chief cackled amusedly. “Those big ones sometimes act like they’re the only ones on the road. You really have to watch yourself out here. Glad I was coming by.”
Yeah, just coming by, Hauck snorted to himself. McKay was probably on the phone to him the second Hauck left his office. “Thanks. You the chief there?”
“Until they take the job away from me …” The policeman grinned. “Riddick,” he said. “So where you heading, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Back your way,” Hauck said. “I’m picking up my niece.”
“She lives here?” Riddick asked, almost as if he knew.
“No. We only came in yesterday.”
“Not much to see in Templeton but onion fields and the potato festival. And that’s in July.”
“We came for a funeral,” Hauck explained.
“Ah … Chuck Watkins’s boy. Real sad … Tried to be there myself. You’re sure your car will make it out of there? I could run you back if you need to.”
“I’ll be fine,” Hauck said, giving the engine a rev. “However, if you come across those two again, I wouldn’t hold it against you if you’d give them each a choke hold from me.”
“You wouldn’t, would you?” The chief chuckled again. “Just consider yourself lucky. What did you say your name was again?”
“Hauck.”
“I’ve seen a lot worse, Mr. Hauck. I once knew this guy, he was driven straight off the road by a couple of those mothers a few years back. Almost flew right into the river over there. Nearly drowned. That was when there was a whole lot more water. Wish I could remember his name …” The cop tapped his forehead. “Doesn’t work quite like it used to, know what I mean? Not that that matters, but I suspect you’ll be leaving soon, now that the boy’s in the ground?”
“Sooner or later. There’s something about this place I’m starting to like.”
“Yeah? And what would that be?”
“I don’t know, the hospitality?” Hauck said.
If smiles could shoot things, Riddick’s would have to be licensed by the NRA. “So I could run you back. Last chance. Never know when another of those rigs will come up again. Out of the blue.”
The offer had more of a feeling of a threat to Hauck, than an invitation. “Won’t be needed. And like you said, you were headed in the opposite direction anyw
ay. I wouldn’t want to hold you up.”
“So I was.” The chief laughed again, but this time without mirth. “Well. I’m glad you’re okay … Maybe pull over next time, when you see them come up on your tail.”
“Be sure of that,” Hauck said.
Riddick went back to his vehicle and opened the driver’s door. “Ah, I remember now … That name I couldn’t recall. Who got run off the road up here. It came back to me. It was John,” the chief said. Hauck saw his face reflected back in the guy’s shades. “John Robertson.”
He let the name sink in.
“But that name wouldn’t mean anything to you, would it now …? You’re just passing through.”
“Nothing at all.” Hauck didn’t need it explained further. “Anyway, I hope he’s okay.”
“Who?”
“Your friend. Robertson.”
“To my knowledge …” Riddick scratched his head. “Haven’t seen him in a long while.” He climbed back into his car. “Funny thing, though, the longer you stick around this place, the more you learn anything can happen here.”
“I’ll be sure and keep that in mind.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
“Well that sure took a while,” Dani said with a roll of her eyes. She was waiting on the street outside.
“Ran into a bit of a speed bump on the way,” Hauck said apologetically.
“An accident? Look at your car, Uncle Ty. It’s a mess.” It had picked up a new layer of dust.
“Not an accident.” Hauck shrugged. “Welcoming committee.”
“You didn’t run in to Robertson, did you?” Dani’s eyes lit up with alarm.
“More like from the friendly folk at Alpha and RMM.”
Dani looked at him, then at the SUV again, its wheels all covered in dust. “Is everything okay, Uncle Ty?”
“I’m fine. I could use a coffee, though. Maybe something to eat.”
“Park over there then. I think I know just the place.”
Inside, over a coffee and a bison burger, he told her about what he’d found in the mailbox at Robertson’s abandoned property that led him to Alpha.
One Mile Under Page 13